Will Mancini

Could you draw a simple picture to explain how you accomplish the mission of your church? We always emphasize the practice of communicating vision visually at Auxano. This is particularly true when it comes to your strategy or what we call the “missional map:” a picture or process that shows how your church will accomplish its mission on the broadest level. This kind of clarity is a missing element in our most effective churches. Unclear strategy keeps guests from knowing next steps, hinders leaders from having a contagious influence on others, and keeps staff working in silos.

This month’s Fast Company (this post was originally published in 2008) has a great article that magnifies the practice of developing a missional map with our clients. Its called the Napkin Sketch: How Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and others are using the power of images to digest complex ideas.

“You ought to be in pictures. No, really. Companies are increasingly using simple pictures to distill complicated concepts into easily shared, easily remembered nuggets. “Graphic expression and visual thinking are a central part of human cognition,” says Neil Cohn. Read article

One of the greatest opportunities in helping people envision a better future is to ask them to draw pictures. One of the secrets of using pictures is that it unleashes a different part of the brain that leaders often DON’T use when planning or problem solving. The attributes of the right brain enable people to live in the conversation of possibilities in a non-threatening way. Imagine scenarios of looking at alternative ways to create, innovate, and structure. It’s always healthy, always helps teams think better, and is often the key to solving a problem or seeing a preferred state.

Several weeks ago I was working with about 30 leaders who were facing obstacles to better team synergy due to their distributed and loosely affiliated network. To use the left side of the brain only would have been extremely difficult. But when we used drawings we saw similar patterns in radically different ways. Each drawing produced new insight and perspective. Again the beauty is that no drawing is “right or wrong.” 

So how do you actually accomplish a meaningful drawing exercise? There are no formulas, but here are some design considerations. 

1) Have people divide into groups of 4-6 to work on common questions. Each group will produce their own unique pictures based on the exercise. 

2) Don’t be afraid to force the exercise with a time limit.  Groups need a time limitation to collaborate and “push” together. It’s common for me to have 20-45 minute time limits based on the complexity of the exercise.

3) Mix up competencies, perspectives and personalities as much as possible. If different functional teams are present, have them meet with colleagues from other departments.

4) Encourage creativity and provide different color markers. A little color goes a long way. 

5) Consider using a “blank slate” and a question. If you do this you need to give a very precise question to answer. For example,, “If we were start our organization all over again today, how might we structure differently in light of the new “glocal” ministry environment?” Or “Given the fact that 70% of the unchurched population around  us doesn’t even care about church, how might we best bring the gospel to them? 

6) Consider  starting with a half-drawn picture.  The part that you draw may be a larger  framework, some organizational non-negotiable  or some shared problem that can be represented as a partial picture. The exercise becomes the work of “completing the picture.” 

7) Keep it serious and fun. In my faith based work, prayer is an essential just before launching into the exercise. Ultimately we are trusting the power of the Holy Spirit to help us see God’s better future together.

EverythingSpeaks.com is a new blog by Cheryl Marting, chief connections officer at Auxano. 

Cheryl Marting is a great  friend and colleague. I am particularly grateful for her role on the team as a multi-faceted leader. From the beginning, she has helped to shape our approach at Auxano and has excelled in helping our church clients build better teams and helping Auxano build better tools. Most importantly she leads Auxano Creative which is a niche design shop for clients who “Walk the Vision Pathway” with us.

For the last six years, most people have not thought of Auxano as a branding group because we have NOT wanted to be pigeon holed as one of the dozens of national ministry marketing firms. We don’t just “do” branding and marketing for a client and if that is all they want, we politely decline.  Instead, we want to help the few who really understand their vision communicate their vision visually.  

Enter EverythingSpeaks.com. This year, now that Auxano’s six year track record and Church Unique’s awareness has clearly anchored us as a clarity and vision firm, we want to be more intentional about sharing what we have done in brand design. As Cheryl Marting leads Auxano Creative, she will share tidbits and insights from our clients and from the branding world in general. The hope of course, is that ministries across the globe will be more intentional with everything they communicate and every way they communicate because, after all,  everything does speak.

Please stop by Cheryl’s blog and let her know you stopped in with a quick comment. She just posted a great story branding story fro one of our client churches.

When I was on staff at Clear Creek Community Church, we brought in some consultants who eventually “dropped the ball” with regard to our expectations. In the midst of dealing with the problem and the disconnect on deliverables  they did an excellent job listening and re-calibrating expectations with us. What I learned that day as a solution to a problem I have embedded proactively and preemptively into most of my own consulting with Auxano.  I call it the “Expectations Exercise.” It’s incredibly simple and profound.

Here’s how it works. Usually in a collaborative environment, there are people with different levels of exposure to me and why we are in the room. In addition, people always have varying opinions. So I never start a long-term relationship without requiring every person around the table to state their expectations- their hopes, their dreams, their fears- for our journey together. (I give them an out if they honestly have no expectations.) I will listen, and then summarize their thoughts on the whiteboard. I then keep these ideas before us during the process. The exercise accomplishes three things:

1) It gives me huge insight into their perspective as we begin together.

2) It provides content to stokes the flames of “why we are here” in the middle of a longer engagement when people might loose perspective.

3) It clarifies the scorecard and allows me to mark progress and celebrate wins through the consulting engagement.

Use this exercise and you’ll be glad you did.

• God still speaks

• If your vision is not stunningly unique, you probably don’t have one 

• However clear the leader is, a surprising gap exists between the leader’s vision and the team’s clarity

• Leaders emotionally substitute two things for real vision: 1) simplistic answers (copycat vision) or 2) busyness (more is more)

• The easiest measure of sustained clarity is the ability to say “no” repeatedly, and feel good about it

• Followers need vision because the future is not here yet and their activity today lacks meaning

• The best way to know “what should be” is to do a better job knowing “what was,” “what is,” and “what could be” 

• Vision moves through people not paper

• With a little training anyone can be an everyday visionary

• Vision dripping is more important than vision casting (#visiondrip)